bronze welding

[FAT-TOY]

  Anyone on here ever use bronze wire in there mig welder, if so what type of job did you use it on and does it do a good job.   I have been offered a slightly used 5kg roll, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.   I imagine I will have to use Argon gas when welding.
  While on this subject, I have done a bit of brazing over the years using oxy/acet but haven't tried brazing using the TIG,  is it a success and could it be used to build or repair a frame.
                                                                                                  Zane

[Curly3]

Zane, I have used a mig wire called Silicone bronze, I bought it for just one job and it doesn't flow any where near as well as the basic mild steel wire, it could've been because I didn't change the liner or the gas but I'm sure someone out there will know more.
It is used by fence and gate fabricators to weld standard Duragal sections before being powdercoated because the weld itself doesn't rust but the heat generated burns the gal away in the process, not as thorough as hotdipped after fabrication.
Basically the weld looked lumpy and pitted but as said I probably wasn't doing it right but I haven't used it again since.
Steve 

[Zakk]

i do a lot of slicone bronze welding at work, mostly when i have to weld metal thats already been galvanized. the silicone bronze enables you to weld galve together without having to burn through the surface so the part doesn't need to be re-galvanized after. silicone bronze works like bronze welding, it melts at a much lower temp than the parent metal so it flows and joins the metal together rather than melts the metals together. you don't need to change the leed liner but you have to use a copershield spec gas instead of argoshield or argon. the copershield is fairly toxic too so dont breath it in. you'll need to experiment with heat and wire speed but i find you can use a much lower voltage compared to wire speed than with normal copper coated mig wire. it's produces very good welds, i use it for welding chromolly bracing on my race bike frames (foreignies at work....  )  but it's a fair bit more expensive than normal mig.

[Curly3]

Thanks Zakk, I knew someone would have a better handle on it than me.
I used it on the recomendation of my powdercoater and you're right it aint cheap.

[EML]

We use stainless wire through the mig when building s/s exhausts. Gives a very nice finish and won't rust. We weigh the roll after each job and charge it out as it's expensive as well.